fall? could it be???

school and work have started back up. i really love my job. i coordinate a program to get students into community service. i think i mostly love it because of the people i work with. the other day i asked my boss if she'd hire me after i graduate to do this stuff full time if i don't get a therapy job...ya i've been questioning sitting at a desk for endless hours a week and having to do loads of stupid paperwork for insurance companies. ideally, i'd like to work for a college doing student development part-time and therapy part-time. we'll see what shakes out.

my schedule is pretty insane-o during the week i.e. on wednesdays i leave the house at 5am and get back at 9pm. but even still i've been really enjoying this beautiful weather...minus the ragweed induced allergies. seriously, this has got to be the worst year for alleriges ever!

due to being broke this semester, i didn't get to head out to colorado to see my friend wiggins like i'd planned, so yesterday i doped up on a little more allergy medicine and hit the gravel road. i'd really been needing the me-time lately and decided i'd go visit my good friend mindy in neosho rapids. but to start out i wanted to make sure i was gonna get alot of miles, so i headed to olpe first and then headed north.

on my way past hartford i saw two roadies in the distance. i figured i'd have to know them and if i didn't i'd want to at least wave. come to find out it was bobby wintle and his father-in-law! i love that in our small biking community we pretty much know who's out there. kinda makes you feel more safe ya know?

got to neosho rapids, spent some time with my friend and her new baby and then headed back home. we'd just been talking about all the weirdos in neosho rapids, so as i was on a deserted gravel road with a white van whose passengers were male and waving, my imagination got the best of me. that was the time i stopped feeling so safe. i pedaled hard and took a road i thought would be helpful in getting me out of the way and home fater; only to find it was a dead-end...and that the "scary van" was long gone and clearly not coming back to throw me in the back, leaving my bike as the only evidence of my kidnap. yeah, i'm not dramatic at all.

after finding a more direct route; that wasn't a dead-end; i passed two trucks on the side of the road that i assumed were owned by hunters. my mind again got the best of me. i know the laws about not shooting across a road but remembered the story of the teenager a few years back who was shot by a hunter from across the road. i'm not niieve enough to think everyone follows laws all the time. shoot, i don't. duh, i break speeding laws on my bike all the time ;)

as i heard gun shots, i imagined what it would be like to be hit by a bullet while on my bike: which part of my body, how i would react, whether the hunters would get me to a hospital in time, how that would effect school and work, how long i'd have to be off the bike...ok, so i'm a little dramatic :) but i blame it on being hungry.

about 15 miles out my stomach started growling. i tried to count how many miles i'd have left according to the alphabet letter road i was on as plus 3 to go south to the 120 block. but every time i counted it ended up the same number: 14...no matter how many miles i had just gone. i figured i should just focus on getting home. mostly because i had homework due at midnight and plans later that evening...it was almost 6pm.

i rolled in at 55 miles on the computer, gathered some food and hit the books so i could get cleaned up and get to the adventure monkey's first birthday party. i was 45 minutes late, but i got it all done. nothin like making the bike your priority!